Burns Day Supper

As the faintest blush of day rose in the sky still deep as night, I gathered potatoes in the dark from a large sack in the shed with a burnt out bulb.

After breakfast, as the sky deepened to blue and night still hung in the trees, I peeled muddy potatoes with measured strokes, alongside a friend, who washed them and piled them in a sinkfull of water.

Songs were sung and the day's news were shared, day was fully here and the real work began. As my student set the table, I cut potatoes then piled them in a deep metal bowl of water, while pots of water were set to boil everywhere that the aga could manage.

The potatoes were on to boil as my student made sandwiches for the farmers and weavers, and I peeled four huge turnips, and struggled to cut up two. They weren't so big as last year, which the farmer tells me were as big as your head. Relief arrived, and volunteered to cut up the remaining two.

Potatoes on, turnips on, time for tea. My student and I share a pot of black, with milk, as he cuts up his apple and sprinkles it with salt. I have my grapefruit plain.

It is time for the haggis to go in. Sandwiched between two casserole dishes, with a bit of water to keep it moist, it goes into a hot oven. Just as the necessary elements are all prepared (the haggis, neeps*, and tatties**), my coworker decides to make zucchini. And of course there is the sauce, requested by the Australian. Sure, it isn't traditional, but it sure tastes nice.

A farmer pops his head in the window and offers us eggs. We heartily accept!

My sauce tastes like nothing, but people are arriving. I corral a few and soon the sauce is surrounded by a crowd, dipping in teaspoons to taste and adding the necessary these and thats.

Quiet strains of bagpipe music waft in with the breeze.

In a flurry of activity, the neeps, tatties, haggis, sauce, and zucchini casserole make their way to the table, as do 16 hungry people.

"To a Haggis" is read, a poem by Scotland's most beloved poet, is read, by our Transylvanian coworker. We cannot understand the words he says, however nor can he.

Such a satisfying, filling, happy meal.


*Turnips
**Mashed potatoes